Walk the World Events

‘Walk the World’ is a sponsored 10 kilometre ‘fun walk’ where teams of students walk a special route and complete fun challenges (riddles, games, activities) along the way to raise money for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Appeals. Students encourage friends and family to sponsor their walk and the donations are pooled in an easy to manage way.

The ultimate goal is to walk the circumference of the earth which means we need four thousand people to take part – we want you to be an important part of this.

The walking route and activities are customisable to your local area, and involves games, riddles and positive interaction with the public. The activities encourage young people to actively learn about our Emergency Crisis Appeals, and understand how international aid relates to them.

Teams of 10 - 15 students complete the walk in friendly competition with other teams so you can locally declare the winning team based on how many points they earned during the walk (winning is not based on fundraising). The whole project should run for approximately 4 hours, including lunch.

Why do it?

Aside from taking initiative and having fun as a team, this project empowers students to learn about moral choices (towards becoming a global citizen). Your students have the opportunity to meet professional aid workers during the project who are from some of the thirteen major UK charities that we work with. They can run short interactive workshops, talk about their experiences and give your students an understanding of why charitable acts are valuable.

Walk the World is also an opportunity for your students to take on new responsibilities and leadership roles. You can delegate some (or all) of the creative and logistical tasks involved with setting up Walk the World at your school to students. No matter what level your students are involved at, they can all include Walk the World as a volunteering activity on their CVs when they graduate.

We understand that for schools time is a precious commodity. Before going any further check your calendar to make sure that you have the time not only to run the event itself but also for the necessary preparation work.

Register you interest on our School Contact Form. We will reply to confirm that we’ve received your information. [ADD LINK]

Step 2.

Decide who will be responsible. You will need a project leader, who will also be the DEC's point of contact, but while you are discussing the project with colleagues or waiting to be contacted by DEC, you can open up the project responsibilities to other staff and students. You may have teaching assistants or a senior student body that would thrive on managing both the creative and practical aspects of Walk the World for Yemen.

Let's meet. A DEC staff member will be delighted to visit you during business hours for an informal meeting with your staff to discuss how Walk the World can work for your school. We can also give a presentation on Walk the World and our Yemen Crisis Appeal in one of your assemblies to educate and motivate your students.

Step 3.

Customise your Walk the World. When your students and colleagues understand the project and are committed to making it happen in your school – it's time to customise your exciting resources!

We will provide you with a suite of guides, templates and workshop outlines to guide you through the process of making key resources such as the map and the team pack. This will include useful guides of how to run your Walk the World project on the day of the walk.

Don't have the time to do it all yourself? Customising resources, organising staff and students, preparing the team packs... responsibilities such as these can be an exciting opportunity for responsible students and teachers assistants to learn and thrive.

You will need to create a custom map for the area that your school is in. This will need to include points of interest where the participating students wills stop to perform various fun tasks and challenges. The map below shows an example route to which a variety of locations have been added.

This project requires a time commitment from someone willing to be the central point of contact with the DEC (the School Coordinator), and the person/s who coordinate your staff and students. There is also a moderate amount of printing involved with preparing the resources for the day of the walk and the option of using decorative items such as balloons. If you were to do all the printing and decoration for a group of 50 student participants, the cost of all related materials would be approximately £30.00.

The time which this project will take out of your student's academic calendar is low impact. A typical Walk the World project takes five and half hours and should start before lunch time. The process of students preparing themselves and departing in groups requires an hour, and walking 10 kilometres takes up to four hours for teenagers to complete. The announcement of winners and wrap-up should last for thirty minutes.

Register you interest by emailing us at support@dec.org.uk. We will reply to confirm that we’ve received your information. Please be aware that initially we are launching this as a pilot project and may not be able to accommodate everyone who wants to take part. If your application is not successful this time we will keep you on record as being interested and will contact you when the project is launched on a larger scale.

For successful applicants a member of DEC staff will be in contact to discuss Walk the World with you and agree a date to visit your school and meet you.

We recommend that May is the earliest month to schedule your Walk the World project, with August being the latest month. This project may fit well within your academic calendar on a sports day, or within your pre-existing programme for charities and activities.

We have a suite of customisable resources to cover each aspect of your Walk the World project. This includes general guidance and help articles, workshop outlines, spreadsheets to manage the signup of students, examples of maps, and templates for the resources needed to run the day itself. Where can we access the resources for Walk the World for Yemen?

We will ask you to nominate a central point of contact who will be responsible for communicating with us and coordinating your schools’ staff, students and local volunteers. We informally call this person the School Coordinator.

We recommend creating a Justgiving page for your schools’ ‘Walk the World’ project. Students encourage friends and family to sponsor them to complete the walk and they can either donate directly to the Justgiving page or give cash to a member of your staff who can electronically transfer to the Justgiving page. For information and tips on setting up a Justgiving page please click this link.

Yes, students should be accompanied by a Group Leader (a responsible DBS checked adult such as a teacher, school staff member or regular volunteer). One adult for a group of 10–15 students aged 14–17 years old, and two adults for groups of younger students. The school is responsible for ensuring that there are adequate numbers of adults to accompany the number of groups competing in the Walk the World project.

The young people should be self-led as much as possible and organise themselves into different roles. The adult is present as a facilitator, ready to assist and motivate the group to keep them on track.